


The Ones You Think You Love

by YellowMagicalGirl



Series: The Shackles and the Dreams [2]
Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Claire Nuñez Doesn't Escape the Shadow Realm During the Eternal Night, Attempt at killing someone slowly, Burns, Don’t copy to another site, F/M, Non-graphic injuries, Possessed!Claire, This got a little darker than I expected, Title from an Imagine Dragons Song, Wings, dark!Reckless Club, dark!Toby, fairy!Claire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21622768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowMagicalGirl/pseuds/YellowMagicalGirl
Summary: Five years after the Eternal Night, Jim finds out that Toby found Claire. Except, Toby's plans for her aren't anything Jim could have expected.Can be read as standalone.
Relationships: Jim Lake Jr./Claire Nuñez, Toby Domzalski & Jim Lake Jr.
Series: The Shackles and the Dreams [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558105
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	The Ones You Think You Love

**Author's Note:**

> So guess what I found in my drafts on tumblr!

“Oh,” Toby said, seeing Jim stalk down the halls of what used to be the Janus Order and was now the base of their operations. “I thought you were taking care of that Stalkling nest.”

“Yeah, well, I finished. I heard you guys found Claire?”

“Eh, not exactly.” Toby’s eyes narrowed. “Who told you?”

“Mary.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

Jim shrugged. Mary tip-toed the edge of what could be considered a security risk, but she had picked up some hacking skills in the past five years, so she could cover her tracks. “So, why did _you_ not tell me about the fact that you found Claire but ‘not exactly’?” Before Toby could answer, Jim took a deep breath. “You found her body, didn’t you?”

“Well... kind of.”

“Tobes, there is no ‘kind of’ when it comes to dead bodies.”

“She’s essentially possessed.”

“Well, how do we un-possess her? If she got _out_ of the Shadow Realm, that means there’s a way for us to get back _in_ to save her.”

“That’s the problem; we tried. Merlin gave us a talisman.”

“You told _him_ but not _me?”_

Toby heaved an annoyed sigh. “Merlin told _us_. Two days ago, and you were away on a different mission. He gave me a talisman that would completely neutralize Morgana’s magic, and also a way to track it. I’m hoping that maybe continued exposure to iron and the talisman will either drive Morgana out, or kill her.”

“Repeat those last two words for me? I think I misheard you.”

“Kill her.” Tobias Domzalski’s expression was more stony than Jim’s own.

“What? _No,_ that can’t be an option. We can’t kill _Claire.”_

“For all intents and purposes, Claire died five years ago. We can’t let her become a threat.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“You’re the one who isn’t being serious. Look, I miss Claire too, but she’s dangerous. More importantly, Claire isn’t _Claire_ anymore, she’s Morgana’s vessel and we need to stop her. She’s in one of the holding cells. Take one look at her, and between her wings and her attitude you’ll understand.”

Jim gave the man next to him a long look, one last time trying to make sure this wasn’t some badly-executed joke.

“Really?” Jim asked. “So you think that if someone comes out of some dark place as a new species and a different psyche, they can’t be trusted?”

The man who had been Jim’s best friend for most of their lives merely stared back, as if there was nothing wrong with that statement. As if that wasn’t what happened to Jim, mere _days_ before they had lost Claire.

How long would it be before no one trusted Jim? He wouldn’t stick around long enough to find out.

He wouldn’t stick around long enough for them to kill Claire, either.

“Next time you should watch how you act around your _allies_ so you don’t lose them, _Domzalski.”_ Jim pushed past him, trying to ignore the sting. He ran until he found an occupied holding cell.

Jim unlocked and opened the door, revealing a young woman staring at the him. Her eyes widened as she realized who he was. She was chained to a chair, just like she had been when Morgana was exorcised from Claire’s body.

Claire was _alive_.

As Jim vaulted over the table to be closer to her, he felt all the anger at his old friends leave his body. He wrapped his arms around her, breathing in her scent. She was here, she was alive. She must have been near a fire recently, because he smelled something akin to smoke.

Some calculating part of his brain that probably wore a green cardigan and talked to a man with a warhammer was trying to tell him to be careful, since Morgana had tried to kill him once from Claire’s body before. As Jim pressed his forehead against hers, he told that part of himself to fuck off.

"I'm so sorry, we should have tried to find a way to get to you. I, we thought you were dead," Jim said as he hugged her. She inhaled quickly as if she was in pain, and he pulled away. “Are you okay?”

Claire gave him a small smile. It was an awkward one, but it was one of _hers_ , not the creepy attempt that Morgana had made on the date. "I'll be fine. Long story short, I got a _pretty_ severe metal allergy at the same time I got my wings."

Jim looked around her, seeing the iridescent black-and-purple wings that Toby had talked about. The chains dug into them, and a faint light similar to when trollskin hit the sun emanated from them.

That was how they were going to try to kill her, wasn’t it?

"Just because I have the whole Morgana situation under control doesn't mean that anyone else thinks so, so more security would be a good thing in the long run, right?" Claire said. Jim _almost_ couldn’t believe that she agreed with their childhood friends, though she probably didn’t realize just what their intents for her were.

_Almost,_ because Jim remembered her crying into his chest a couple nights after her exorcism because she had had a nightmare where she had been possessed again. And now she had to live that nightmare every day.

"I missed you so much,” Claire said. “I didn't even let myself hope that you were alive all this time." He had let himself wonder if she was alive, but that had been a moment of despair, not hope, for him. Morgana had likely been furious for being locked into the Shadow Realm. Given how creative her threats were, Jim had thought death would have been a mercy for Claire. He was probably wrong.

"It's not fine, and I trust you. You don't deserve to be treated like this. Hold still for a moment, please? I don't want to hurt you." He then summoned a dagger and sliced through the chains. Claire practically leaped out of her chair and wrapped her arms and wings around Him. He slowly wrapped his left arm around her, careful to avoid her wings. He wasn’t an expert in medicine for either of the two species that he was, much for fairy wings, but the burns looked like they’d be painful if touched. The four fingers of his other hand carded through her hair in a soothing motion.

"Let's get out of here," he said. "Let's go home."

He wouldn’t let anything happen to her.


End file.
